


the sun will rise (and we will start again).

by pomegranateblood



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst and Feels, Blood and Gore, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Pining Bucky Barnes, Torture, World War II, im sorry this first chapter is pure sadness, it's gonna get SUPER fluffy eventually i promise, its gonna get sadder before it gets happier, more characters later yknow
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-29
Updated: 2018-05-29
Packaged: 2019-05-15 06:28:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14785256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pomegranateblood/pseuds/pomegranateblood
Summary: The cold started beneath his skin. It laced around his rib cage slowly, and crawled between his lungs until it found a place it liked, nestling there and lapping at the blood that pooled at it's feet. When the heat threatened to overwhelm Bucky's body, it nipped at the emotion and cut it down into a sputtering flame that promised to go out at the end of the day. The cold strengthened slowly, until it did not fit between his lungs and had to relocate deep in the center of his stomach. It grew and grew and grew into a wolf, glistening with ice and snow, and stretched itself throughout Bucky until it promised to swallow him whole. He would have let it, had it not been for those burning lips upon his, pulling him into the light and enveloping him in their devotion.Had it not been for the sunrise and a new day.Had it not been for Steve, his infuriatingly beautiful smile, and his boundless hope.aka Bucky’s fight to reclaim himself after his life is ripped apart, and the story of how Steve Rogers’ eyes could make even the most clueless amnesiac remember his middle name.





	the sun will rise (and we will start again).

It always began in fire.

He was barely aware of what was happening. He did not know where he was or who he was or how he had gotten here. All he knew was the insistent feeling of fear.

There was heat, searing, burning heat that lapped at his skin, and a soreness that mimicked the fire slowly growing around him. Adrenaline coursed through his veins like a drug, dulling his pain and heightening his sense, and he distinctly remembered stumbling against the bars of the now crumbling walkway, his hands pushing into the metal like it was a lifeline, and–

Steve. His Steve. Except he was too tall and too strong. His muscles strained against the brilliantly colored sleeves of his uniform. It was not his Steve at all. His Steve couldn’t throw a punch, much less put up a fight against a monster whose skin was being ripped from his face to reveal glistening crimson.

Bucky blinked, his mind trying to wrap itself around what was happening. He loosely felt his mouth form the words, “you don’t have one of those do you?”

A hint of a smile slid to Steve's lips.

And then Bucky’s memory slipped, along with his feet, and he was sliding down a beam of steel, using the last of his waning strength to propel himself onto the walkway across from him. His heart dropped with the beam. Steve stood across from him, a seemingly endless distance between them, and then he was leaping across it, and the flames bounded with him, and all at once he was there with Bucky.

Safe.

The word resonated in his mind like a punch to the temple.

Even when he had nothing, he had Steve.

 

…

 

They went back to base, the remaining men applauding them like they were heroes. There was singing and laughing and drinks, but Bucky could not focus on the fizzing beers and the boisterous conversation. He could not stay in one place. 

The feeling of murky oblivion still crawled in the corners of his thoughts, and it bothered him more than he could ever imagine. The idea that he did not know who he was, or what was going on. He could feel the thick pull of ignorance and fought the memory like it would kill him. 

Still, the threat of nothingness was not the only pull in his brain.

There was something foreign in his veins and he knew it; it was festering slowly within him, like a growing disease. Something from deep in that laboratory. From within the many needles that were poked and prodded into him. An infection of sleet and hail.

His body did not feel like his own. His skin was not his. His mind was ripped open so that bits and pieces felt out of place. A constant wrongness.

He had a sneaking suspicion that if he were to bring a blade to his skin it would reveal a glistening blue liquid pouring out from his throbbing veins, a glowing blood that sparked alien energy into machines and infected those around it with vibrant insanity.

His body was a tripwire, waiting to explode.

And yet, back in the present, Bucky yawned slowly, his gaze trained on the passing hills that rolled alongside the train. He still could not shake the gnawing feeling of unease, but he shoved it deep into his thoughts and let it tick like a time bomb. The unfamiliar feeling that swam inside him would fade. He just needed to sweat it out like a fever.

It was nothing.

Bucky absentmindedly pressed his thumb against the knuckle of his right pointer finger and pressed down, releasing only once the soft _pop_ sounded. He was desperate for a cigarette, desperate for something to take his mind off the color blue, glowing and pulsing, splattered against the inside of his skull.

The visions were vivid in his memories, the realization that he was falling ill, and the subsequent experience of his teeth grinding into themselves as they strapped him down onto the table. Dirty needles pushing their heads into his skin to fill his veins with liquid ice, glowing with the same neon as the weapons he was forced to assemble. His jaw unhinged, letting screams fill the air until he could not breathe and his voice was raw and broken. Even then his voice would try to call out and he would blindly lay in the silence of his attempts, the pain ever present even if his body was not. The doctors had stood idly by, scribbling loudly into their notebooks and murmuring to each other. Each attempt had led to their heads shaking and heavy german accents demanding, “again.”

Bucky let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding, sinking deeper into the stiff cushion beneath him.

It was over.

He was _safe_. 

The prisoners from the 107th were being sent home for a bit of a recuperation period, and many of them would stay there. He almost wished he were one of them. But Steve needed his help, and in three days he would be shipped back out to Germany to dismantle the remaining Hydra bases. Three days to sort things out, to get his head back on his shoulders.

He sighed, breathing deeply through his mouth, and let his fingers grasp at the heavy material of his army issued pants. They were almost to Brooklyn. The surroundings were becoming more densely concentrated with buildings, and the thick cloud of smoke that hung around the city seemed to have blossomed into the atmosphere.

Bucky wanted to be home, he really did, but the sickening feeling that was lodged in his chest couldn’t seem to be shaken. He wanted to talk to Steve. Ask him what the hell was happening, how he became taller than Bucky and turned into “Captain America.” It felt like he hadn’t gotten real answers in forever.

As he pressed his fingertips into his palms, the sound of the door sliding open interrupted his thoughts. Bucky glanced up, taken by surprise, and then forced himself to smile.

Speak of the devil.

He gestured to the seat across from him and quirked his eyebrow, trying his best to seem more composed than he felt.

“Well, if it ain’t the man of the hour,” Bucky said casually and paused, as if unsure what to say next. Steve let out an exasperated noise, though he was fighting a losing battle with his smile, and so Bucky continued smoothly, “are you staying in Brooklyn or are you just here to look pretty for us broken boys? I’ve still got a spare room if you need…”

He trailed off, shrugging slightly, and glanced back to the window. He couldn’t help but feel like something was different, like he suddenly wasn’t good enough to be Steve’s friend. It was crazy, he was sure, but it still dug into his head like a bullet wound, and his thoughts drifted back to the idea no matter what.

Any sense of normalcy had been ripped from the hinges of his reality, and his logic seemed to have escaped with it. Bucky was terrified. 

Steve smiled widely, his eyes flicking to the window.

“Of course, I’m staying, Buck. I,” he let out a breath, sitting down across from Bucky, and glanced down at his hands. He looked awkward, as if he was still unsure of how his body worked. A little boy in the body of a god.

Bucky looked away, gluing his eyes to the smudges along the glass beside him. 

Steve started again, his eyes searing holes into Bucky’s skull, “I missed you.”

He was warm then, burning up from the inside. The heat bubbled through his body like a virus, pushed away his current infection and pulled it from his brain. His fear felt momentarily forgotten.

He smiled slowly, looking at Steve from beneath thick eyelashes.

“Really? I thought you threw yourself in front of hundreds of armed Nazi’s just because you liked getting shot at.”

Steve laughed, quiet and happy, and Bucky smiled at the sight. The heat simmered within him.

He continued, “actually, that’s too close to the truth. It always seemed like you were itchin’ for someone to swing at you. Using me as an excuse to single handedly storm a weapon base, were you, Stevie?”

There was that laugh again, but this time Steve rolled his eyes while he spoke, “oh, hush up.”

The silence settled over them, happy and familiar, and Bucky caught himself staring. His eyes raked over Steve’s shoulders, up the curve of his neck, slanting over his jawline. He was beautiful. His lips were soft and pink and he wanted to press into them and feel them give under his fingertips. He wanted to feel the slope of his cheeks and brush over the smoothness of his jaw. Steve was an adonis. Honey-golden hair and bright, bright blue eyes that–

Fuck. Steve raised his eyebrows slightly, looking amused, and then let his gaze slide back out the window.

When he spoke again it was quiet, as if he was telling a secret, “everyone is doing that nowadays.”

Bucky’s eyebrows furrowed and he returned, “what?”

“Looking at me. Staring. Like I’m something they want to touch and feel and figure out.”

He wanted to say that wasn’t what he was doing. Really, truly he did. But he did want to touch Steve. He wanted to feel the contours of his hands and see if his hair was still as feather soft as it seemed whenever Bucky smoothed it down on Sunday mornings. It was too new. Steve seemed like a dream, a drawn out hero, not Bucky’s childhood best friend who got sick every other month and had nearly died to pneumonia last year. He needed a guarantee. Proof or something. Maybe he needed his best friend. But that was it.

Without the sugar-sweet voice of familiarity, Steve could almost be another person.

Bucky shifted, pushing his shoulder against the cold metal frame of the train’s window, and let the words rush out, “You just look so familiar. Your eyes are still so blue, and your smile looks the same… but you’re different now. And my brain doesn’t want to think that my best friend, Steve Rogers, who’s ninety pounds soaking wet, is now big enough to carry a damn car.”

Steve smiled once, quickly, and murmured an agreement. He didn't look at Bucky.

There was a long pause, filled with unsaid words and the heavy movement of the train car’s rocky descent towards the station. Steve stood as they pulled to a screeching halt.

Bucky’s chin jerked up with the motion, his eyes suddenly wide and his breath caught in his throat. The warmth in his chest had gone out, leaving the sharp edge of frostbite to creep along his arteries, and a flare of incorrigible fear that spluttered within him. 

He couldn’t lose Steve again. Steve was all he had. His only connection to home, his only friend who had seen him after a long day of charming all of Brooklyn, when he was tired and loose and whispering secrets into the dry air of their apartment. He was the only one who had wrapped his arms around Bucky and soaked him in pure happiness. Steve was the foundation of the building that was Bucky Barnes. Steve was the sun and Bucky fought for him alone. It didn’t matter if he was five foot four or six feet even, he loved Steve more than anyone in the world.

And somehow he felt that if Steve left him he would have nothing. He would be lost, a silhouette within the world, desperately searching for his sun. He couldn’t bare to lose him again.

The words tumbled from his mouth like a confession, “I missed you too.”

Steve smiled, the grin pulsing through his whole body, and pushed through the open door.

When he was finally gone, Bucky felt the cold crawl into him and curl up in his chest, a pet of putrid ice and longing. He gripped the feeling and pushed it into himself, letting the animal’s claws latch onto him.

Maybe with this coldness he wouldn’t feel so alone whenever Steve left.

 

…

 

He registers it too late. He is always too late. Too late to grab the fist being swung at Steve’s face, too late to see the last soldier, too late to realize that he wanted to press his lips against his best friend’s.

Bucky is going to tell him. As soon as they get back to camp he’s going to pull him aside and tell him everything.

But it’s too late.

The shield falls from his hands and he flies back, reaching for the metal handrail of the blown out train car. His fingers grasp around the pole and he could nearly scream in relief. It’s going to be okay. He’s going to be fine. Steve inches towards him, panic glistening in his eyes and Bucky wants nothing more than to say, “it’s going to be fine! I love you, we’re going to be alright.” But the metal breaks away from the wall. It shudders and swings out and

He falls.

His middle finger brushes over Steve’s but he is plummeting, weightless against the whipping wind of the oncoming storm. He hears a scream and barely registers that it’s coming from his mouth. 

The clouds above him swirl, angry and dark.

Steve is there too, rushing away from him as fast as he rushes away from the clouds. He arches his back, reaching as if he can still touch him, and then his body strikes against the earth below him.

Bucky’s eyelids shut. He is overwhelmed with glossy pain.

His heart beats in his chest like a stuttering metronome, counting out; one, two, three, four, and slows into a heavy song of seeping hurt. The creature in his chest unfurls its feet from his broken flesh and howls, low and melancholy, a testament to his broken heartbeat. It licks at his wounds and stitches them together with bitter snowflakes, lets his blood freeze over into a ruby red ice rink. It freezes him in time, leeching his very being so that it can grow and flourish and curl around his entire body, protecting him from the heat that threatens to burn up his skin and snap into his body. It lays it’s head down next to his and purrs. It lulls him into an algid sleepiness.

His eyes flicker open and shut, a murmur against the exhaustion that blankets his skin, and he can see a ribbon being pulled from his body. It trails behind him as he glides over the ice.

It grows as he watches, starting as a whisper of brilliant satin, and tumbles out of his shoulder as a bouquet of crimson velvet.

He lets the last drop of warmth seep out of his body in that ribbon, and closes his eyes, relaxing into the comfortable bite of the cold.

 

…

 

When he wakes, there are hands ghosting over his face, cupping at his cheeks, and his eyes flutter open. Crystalline blue irises meet his.

Laughter runs up the lines of his throat and he grins, shoving his hands into Steve’s hair to pull him down into a chaste kiss. Their mouths curve together into matching grins. Bucky holds him there, pushing their bodies flush against each other and lets his lips brush over Steve’s softly.

“I love you. ‘Till the end of the line, Stevie, I don’t care.”

Steve’s eyebrows furrow, but he stays silent, and Bucky runs the pads of his thumbs over his cheekbones.

“How did you find me? I thought I died.”

Steve leans into him then, pushing their lips together slowly. He turns his head and Bucky’s sighs into him, revelling in the feeling he’d thought about only in passing. 

After a moment they break apart and Steve murmurs, thick as molasses and low enough to be inappropriate, “you did.”

Bucky’s eyes snap up and he opens his mouth to ask _what the hell_ , but Steve is smiling down at him, his cheeks shallow and paled green. Blood trickles out of his left nostril and drips, oh, so slowly down into Bucky’s open lips. It tastes cold and metallic, and it fills his mouth until he chokes, spitting blood onto Steve’s bruising cheeks.

Bucky gasps loudly and then there are chapped lips being pushed against his, hard and slow, just how he likes, and he tries to jerk away.

He can’t move. His body is being held into place. He can’t fucking move and the blood is oozing down into his throat, and he wants to scream so bad but the weight of Steve’s body is too heavy and he can’t fucking move, he can’t, he can’t _he can’t hecan’thecan’thecan’t_.

The weight intensifies slightly, pushing against his left arm, and he struggles to pull away, wheezing.

When he blinks his eyes open, Steve is gone and the air is shockingly cold in his wake.

Bucky’s teeth clench as the weight continues to push against his skin, indenting it and letting it split in the middle. It starts just below his shoulder, travelling down his arm and suddenly there is a loud shriek coming from his mouth as the agony blossoms into his neck like a parasitic vine. He finally looks to see exposed bone, and the shocking whiteness of it is slathered in blood. Small trails of the liquid pulsate over the remaining chunks of pink tissue.

His arm is gone along with Steve’s memory. 

He feels blood pool on his tongue again and gags when he realizes he’s biting down on his tongue.

Voices filter in then, quiet beneath the pained noises his throat is releasing. They are thick with accents, and filled with annoyance.

“Stop the bleeding, he is no good to us dead.”

Pressure appears at the site of his injury. He groans. 

“And shut him up.”

A loud crack sounds above him, and a burst of blinding white appears behind his eyes, originating from a sharp stab of pain in his temple. He blacks out a second later, his throat retching from the taste of coins, and his lips bluish from the cold.

**Author's Note:**

> sorry about the Pure Depression. this'll get happier, i promise, we just need to get through one more bout of Pain And Suffering and Winter Soldiering, yknow.
> 
> thanks to my fucking best friends, "gods thotties (tinsels thot edtition)" The Groupchat, for beta reading this and missing ALL the typos, im sure.


End file.
